Atheists Who Kneel and Pray

by Tarryn Fisher

“You still like that shit?” he says, turning around to check.

  I nod. We carry our beers to a table near the pretzel machine and sit down.

  “So,” he says.

  “Congratulations. On everything,” I say. “You guys really made it happen.”

  He nods slowly, his eyes drilling into me. Ferdinand is frightening as fuck. I try to remind myself that this was the guy who had a kitten screensaver on his computer.

  “Yeah, I guess I should be thanking you,” he says.

  I flinch. So, it was going to be like that.

  “You would have made it one way or the other. David is a talented songwriter.”

  He finishes off his beer and then looks at me. “So what do you want, Yara? Why are you back, or do I even need to ask that?”

  “I need to find him. I tried to e-mail him, but he changed his e-mail, I guess.”

  “Yeah, after that little stunt you pulled in Paris I don’t blame him.”

  My face rearranged itself. I could feel it happening.

  “Or you don’t blame Petra,” I say, raising my eyebrows.

  The corner of his mouth lifted in what I perceived was a smile. Wow. I made Ferdinand half smile.

  “I need a smoke,” he says.

  I stand up to go outside with him. The traffic is thick, rush hour. I kick at his last cigarette butt with my boot as I wait for him to light up. Eventually I can’t take it anymore.

  “Ferdinand, tell me where he is.”

  I put both hands on my hips like I can intimidate a six foot four bull of a man. He blows smoke out of his mouth and for a moment his face is lost behind the cloud.

  “Your mother named you after Ferdinand the bull, didn’t she?”

  His eyebrows jump at the sudden change of subject, but it just occurred to me that she must have and I felt the need to ask.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Because you were huge or preemie?”

  “Preemie,” he says, frowning.

  I nod. “What a prediction.” Then I drop my hands to my sides letting my shoulders droop. That’s how I really feel: droopy.

  “I’m sorry I never got to know you before,” I said. “I had—have issues.” I sit down on the wall outside David’s old building and stare up at the sky. It’s getting ready to rain, I’m going to get drenched.

  Ferdinand sits down next to me, sighing deeply.

  “I never liked you,” he says.

  I look up at him. “You knew I’d hurt him.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “David sees the best, I see the truth. And you had that look of panic in your eyes the whole time you were with him.”

  I nod. That was true. “I love him very much,” I say. “I just wasn’t good at love back then.”

  “Why not?”

  I look at the street, a couple is crossing a few feet away—they remind me of David and me back in the day.

  “I didn’t have anyone show me until David and then it scared me off. When you’re unhealthy, healthy things are frightening.”

  “Are you healthy?” He looks at me and I resist the urge to look away.

  “No,” I tell him. “But, I’m getting there. I know what I need to do.”

  “Find David,” he says.

  “That’s part of it, yes. We’re still married, for God’s sake. Something has to be done one way or another.”

  He stares at me long and hard. “All right,” he says finally. “I’ll give you his address. But, you have to promise me something.”

  I nod, vigorously.

  “No more games,” he says.

  I cross my heart. Ferdinand shakes his head as he texts me David’s address.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he mumbles.

  “Thank you, Ferdinand,” I say as I stand up. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  I start to run toward 1st Street, but he calls after me. “Yara! That address is for a houseboat.” I hold up my hand to show him I’ve heard him and I keep running.

  I run to Ann’s flat—apartment—and fling open the door. She’s sitting by the window watching the traffic as she does every day at this time.

  “Ann, I got it. I got his address. Now help me decide what to wear.”

  She turns to face me, a small smile on her lips. “How do you know he’ll be there?” she asks.

  I stop on my way to the bathroom and frown. I guess I don’t. I’ll wait outside if I have to.

  “What if that hussy shows up with him, that Peeta?”

  “Petra,” I correct her, staring into my suitcase. “I don’t know. I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.”

  “There will be a fight,” Ann decides. “A catfight.”

  “Sure,” I shrug, pulling out a dress I brought just for this occasion. “Let’s see if she’s scrappy.”

  Ann claps her hands and then returns to her spot. I glance back at her. She’s been in this apartment for thirteen years, she told me so when we first met and she invited me in for tea. Thirteen years of never leaving this one small place. I close the bathroom door and rip out my hairband, letting my hair fall free. I have one shot. I’m going to use all my weapons.

  When the Uber pulls up to David’s houseboat, I am trembling.

  “Bloody hell,” I say as I climb out of the car.

  He used to say he wanted to buy a houseboat one day, but people say things like that all the time. I tell people that I want to live in a tree house, for fuck’s sake, that doesn’t mean I’ll live in a tree house. There are dozens of them, their front yards a long, narrow dock, their backyards the blue/green expanse of Lake Union.

  I look at the address on my phone, the one Ferdinand texted to me and I trace it to a grey houseboat with white shutters. It’s not very large or extravagant. Pink bougainvillea climb around the front door in a stunning arc. The door itself is bright yellow with a music note as a knocker. I step forward, off the dock and onto the walkway. Next to the welcome mat are two pairs of flip-flops sitting side by side: one a man’s, one a woman’s. It makes me sick to look at them, to know that neither of them is mine.

  “Petra,” I say, under my breath.

  Dodgy bitch and her stupid flip-flops. I never thought about her in my rush to get here, that she’d actually be living with him—though it makes sense, doesn’t it? I breathe deeply and step forward to knock on the door. I knock hard, three times, and then I step back, preparing myself for whatever is about to happen.

  I see someone move across the rectangular windows that frame the door, a flash of white. I steel myself as I hear the bolt slide open. Silver hair, lavender lips.

  “Petra,” I say.

  She looks startled. Of course—I’m supposed to be in France. She grips the door with one hand and stares at me.

  “Where’s my husband?”

  “Fuck you, Yara.”

  She’s about to close the door in my face, but I stick my foot in the gap so she can’t close it. She’s flustered as I try to peer past her into the house. Most of the lights are off, but I can hear the sound of a TV. If David were here surely he’d have come to the door.

  “Where is he?”

  “If you don’t go I’ll call the police,” she says.

  I laugh. “What will you tell them? That David’s wife is harassing his whore?”

  Red is not a good color on Petra—it clashes with her makeup. I watch as her face turns an ugly beet color and panic rises in her eyes.

  “You’re crazy,” she says. “You won’t give him a divorce and now you’re stalking him.”

  “He’s never asked me for a divorce, Petra.”

  She blinks at me, unsure. I can see the uncertainty on her face.

  “You left him,” she says.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You never deserved him,” she adds.

  I shove the door and it hits her in the chest. She’s pushed back a few inches and then she flings the door open, her mouth puckered and angry.

  I laugh. I meant to antagonize her and i
t works because she takes a step toward me.

  “I may not deserve him, but he chose me. I always knew what you were up to,” I say. “All of your questions and underhanded insults. You think you have him? You silly little girl. I feel sorry for you because you’ve never had him. You don’t even know what it’s like to have him.”

  Her faces flushes and then she slaps me. My head snaps back, my cheek on fire. I don’t retaliate because I’ve made her hurt. It’s what I wanted and it will last longer than the sting of her hand.

  “Goodbye, Petra. Pack your shit and get the fuck out of my husband’s house.”

  And then I walk away. The wind has picked up and my dress blows around my ankles. I lift my arms above my head as I walk and let the Seattle wind lick my skin. It’s cold and I am alive. Finally, I am alive.

  I know she’s afraid. I can feel her fear on my back. She only had him because I didn’t. I walk until she can’t see me and then I double over and cry so hard my stomach hurts.

  I left him. The person who is so afraid of being left. I hurt him the way others had hurt me. What did that make me? I didn’t know what he’d say or do when he saw me, if I were David I’d never take me back. Never. I broke his trust.

  I don’t call an Uber. I walk, and I know what I have to do. I don’t know where he is. But, he made it so I could find him. He gave me an IOU.

  There is a hardware store on 4th Avenue. I stop to peer into the window, giving myself a minute to decide if this is what I really want to do. The next twenty minutes go by quickly. I press the call button on the wall and one of the guys who works there comes over to open a case for me. I make my selection without speaking. If I speak I will cry, and if I cry I will not stop crying. So it goes, so it goes.

  It wasn’t even gradual, the change in me. It came suddenly, clarity…maturity. Grow up, Yara, I told myself. And so I did. I put away the childish things and I grew up.

  I follow him to the register and he asks me if there’s anything else I need. I shake my head and pull the dollars from my wallet, green and crisp. They’re foreign to me again, all the male faces. I’ve been gone a long time.

  When I leave I carry my bag up streets so steep my thighs burn, past men and women who hold cardboard signs asking for help, past Westlake Center, and across the 405. I feel the mist as the clouds open and rain gently rests on my head. It’s a soft caress, a reminder of where I am, and for that reason I don’t call a car. I need to think, burn off all this emotion. He did big things, and I’ve done big things, but surely this is the biggest thing, changing.

  I flew across the world to show David that I’m not over him. That I’d never be. I had to snuff out my pride and fears to do that. And what he did with this grand act makes no difference anymore. This was for me first, then for him, then for us. I deserve love. Maybe not from this man who I’d abandoned and hurt so deeply, but from someone. It’s a matter of being ready to accept love.

  I follow the directions to Capitol Hill. A white brick building with three pink letters above its door: IOU. People stand outside waiting to be called on, some of them huddled underneath umbrellas, some of them not. They look hungry. I walk right past them and step into the restaurant, shivering from the change in temperature. The smell of garlic and butter floats past me as a server walks by holding a plate over her head to avoid collision. The restaurant is much the same as the one in London—same structure, same booths, same dress code for the servers and bartenders. The only difference is the Seattle skyline painted on the main wall of the dining room. I head straight to the bar, shaking my can of spray paint as I walk. The roll of the ball syncs with my steps, an unlikely instrument that plays along with Nirvana’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” There is the wall: Come back to me. Come back. Come. Kurt sings—My girl, my girl, don’t liiie to me…

  I pull off the cap and toss it on the ground. Shaking, shaking. The roll of the ball inside of the can. My heart beats steady and fast.

  I tag the wall, underneath the neon sign. There’s enough room for my message.

  I’m back. Find me.

  The talk in the bar slows, dims. Over the music I hear someone say—“Oh my God, what is she doing?”

  I walk over to the bar when I’m done. The bartender is panicked, looking around for a manager. I set my can of spray paint on the counter.

  “Are you hiring?” I ask. I grin at him as he stares openmouthed from me to the wall. “Guess that’s a no, then?”

  No one tries to stop me and I walk out singing, “In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine. I would shiver the whole night through…”

  It only takes me the length of one song to deliver my message.

  DAVID

  “David…?”

  I shake my head, squeeze my eyes closed, and then hold them open. I had been dreaming when the phone woke me. I rub my eyes and look at the clock: 10:00 p.m. I must have passed out watching Californication. I mute the TV.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “David, sorry to bother you, but there was an incident tonight at the restaurant...”

  The voice…I know his voice. What was his name? Dan…Mark…Greg! That’s right, Greg, the manager of the Seattle IOU. I reach for the nearest glass and take a sip, expecting it to be water. Vodka. I flinch, but keep drinking. Half the bottle is gone, no wonder I passed out.

  “What’s up,” I say. The fuck with the bright lights in this place? I stumble over to the light switch and turn them off.

  “A girl came in, she wasn’t a customer, as far as I know. One of my servers said they saw her walk in from outside. She…uh…she vandalized a wall in the bar.”

  “What?” I set the glass of vodka on my chest. My head is aching. A hangover.

  “I wasn’t there,” he said quickly. “She had a can of spray paint…”

  God. “Okay…” I wish he’d just spit it out. I look around for my bottle of Tylenol. The room is trashed. I knock things off the narrow table and find it underneath a pile of clothes.

  “She spray-painted the wall in the bar. Under the sign…”

  “What does it say?” I rip off the lid with my teeth and pour the last three pills in my mouth. Greg hesitates. I can hear him moving things around and I wish he’d just spit it the fuck out so I can go back to sleep. I lie down on the bed, pulling a pillow over my face.

  “I’m back. Find me…”

  I sit up, the pillow rolling onto the floor.

  “What?”

  “I’m back. Find me,” he repeats.

  I’m already up, looking for my jeans in the pile of clothes on the floor.

  “Don’t touch it. I’m on my way.”

  When I arrive it’s past midnight and most of the staff has left for the night.

  “We need to stay open till two,” I tell Greg as I walk in. “We’re not fucking Cinderella.”

  I walk through the main dining room and toward the bar with him trailing behind me. The first thing I see is the can of spray paint, which is sitting on the bar top where I presume she left it. I pick it up to read the label: Pink Camo. Then I look at the wall.

  She doesn’t have a career in graffiti art—that’s for sure. The words are slanted like she did it in a hurry. I’m back is larger than the Find me.

  “She color coordinated,” I say.

  Greg rushes forward. “What? I wanted to call you first. Before the police.”

  “No need to call the police,” I say, not taking my eyes from the wall.

  “We have security cameras,” he says. “We can…”

  “Show me,” I interrupt him.

  He leads me through the kitchen and to a small office in the rear of the building. I sit in the only chair and swivel back and forth as he fidgets with the computer. She was here. Here. In this building.

  “There,” he says, finally.

  I stare at the image on the computer screen; it’s grainy, devoid of color. I watch with my eyes narrowed as a woman walks across the restaurant, shaking a can of spray
paint as she goes. Her gait is sure…determined, but even so, I can see the sexy sashay of her hips. She doesn’t hesitate before she tosses the cap onto the floor and vandalizes my bar. I laugh, and Greg looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

  “Sir—” he says.

  “Don’t call me that. Did anyone see where she went after she left?”

  “No. We were…in shock. She had to be on drugs or something.”

  I laugh again.

  “Okay,” I say, standing up. “Okay.”

  “Okay what, Si—David?”

  “Leave it,” I say. “Just as it is.”

  “But…”

  “Leave it,” I say, firmly. “It’s exactly how it should be.”

  When I leave the restaurant, my headache has disappeared and I feel wired. Yara doesn’t wait to act, and for this reason, I know she must have just arrived in Seattle. How long? A day…two days? Where is she staying? Her e-mail, the one I used before, doesn’t work anymore. I tried to send her an e-mail after the stunt she pulled in Paris, and then realized she must have deleted the account because of the reporters. I have something I have to do tomorrow night. Somewhere I have to be. Once that is done I can find her.

  I realize he may be angry with me. The restaurant was there long before the stunt I pulled in Paris. There is a chance that what I did changed the way he felt. If someone did that to me I’d…

  Come back to me. Come back. Come.

  I try not to think about David being angry. That was beside the point, wasn’t it? I came here to make a stand, to bring some kind of closure to my life so that I can move on to the next chapter. I can go back to the houseboat and wait there until I see him, but I’m afraid of the potential rejection.

  I’m lying prostrate on Ann’s living room floor when I get a text from Posey.

  He has a benefit concert tomorrow in Portland.

  I sit up abruptly.

  How do you know? I text back.

  The internet is a wonderful thing, Yara. You should learn how to use it.

  “Ann…?” I call out. “I have to go to Portland.”